Pride of JP 61 years ago

When the Artemis II plunged into the Atlantic recently after its trip around the moon, I was caught off guard by the large number of Navy people in rafts surrounding the bobbing lunar module as they checked for strange microbes before attaching a flotation collar and “front porch” for a helicopter lift to the USS John P. Murtha a short distance away.

My cousin, Kathleen Grassl (nee Sullivan), now living in Canton, recently reminded me of a similar event in August of 1965. It was then that Forest Hills Street’s Johnny Hunt, the son of two Irish immigrants living on the third floor of a neighboring triple-decker, became nationally famous when he and two other frogman – in sharp contrast to the large number of Artemis rescuers – secured the flotation collar to Gemini 5. Lieutenant Hunt – known to everybody in Ward 11’s 7th precinct as Johnny* – was stationed on the aircraft carrier USS Lake Champlain awaiting the capsule’s descent into the ocean. After Hunt opened the hatch to greet astronauts Conrad and Chandler, he gave the thumbs up to the hovering helicopter to prepare for the hoists.

On that eventful Sunday morning, when Mike Wallace mentioned his name on national television, it surprised most of us – not knowing his assignment – but made him mother Molly beam with pride as her phone started ringing off the cradle. His brother Gene and sister Peggy McLaughlin were no less proud.

Having graduated from Boston College in 1962, he enlisted in the Navy and entered Officer Candidate School in Newport, RI. Shortly afterward – though not an athlete – he passed grueling swimming tests to become a member of its elite Underwater Demolition Team.

Launched in late August of 1965 with the motto “8 Days or Bust,” Gemini 5 made 120 orbits around the earth before its splashdown seven days and 23 hours later. It successfully demonstrated that astronauts could endure weightlessness for the approximate period of time necessary to fly to the moon and back. Sixteen out of 17 experiments were conducted, with its success concluded by a “rescue” facilitated by a 25-year-old frogman from Our Lady of Lourdes almost 61 years ago.

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• It seemed that most kids in the 50s had an “ee” sound appended to their first names: Timmy, Tommy, Paulie, Richie, Bobby, Billy, Jerry, Frankie, Buzzy, Cathy, Joey, Genie, Ronnie, Eddie, Kenny, Skippy, Buddy, Peggy, Annie, Dickie, Margie, Jimmy (but never Jamie) – reminiscent of Matt Damon’s litany of his siblings for heartthrob Minnie Driver at the L Street Tavern in the movie “Good Will Hunting.”